Wind Turbine

The Wind Turbine was the last major invention of the prolific Doctor Wilhelm Fassenbiender. Based on research performed during the Great War, Fassenbiender developed a device capable of simulating tropospheric weather conditions on a large scale - the machine creates storms.

Fassenbiender intended the Wind Turbine to be used in a benevolent manner - to irrigate arid areas and relieve droughts. The leader of his research team, however, had different ideas. Doctor Nicolas Von Essen attempted to use the Wind Turbine as a weapon of war, as part of what became known as the Starker Sturm Project.

However, Von Essen was foiled by a flaw in Fassenbiender's design - a Wind Turbine sufficiently large to affect weather conditions would be far too massive to move. Frustrated at Fassenbiender's consistent refusal to weaponise his designs, Von Essen had him sent to the Ingolstadt POW camp, where Fassenbiender met Nathan Zachary.

At the conclusion of the war, Fassenbiender and his daughter emigrated to the United States, when he continued his research. While he was able to replace the designs and schematics lost in the fall of Germany, Fassenbiender was not able to overcome the weight problem until 1938, when he discovered a mine in Arixo which had found a rich vein of titanium, and constructed a chemical plant capable of performing the Kroll process, the means of refining titanium.

Unfortunately, Von Essen, now head of the diabolical Die Spinne, discovered Fassenbiender's progress, and sent his forces in to reclaim the doctor's plans while he sent his allies, the Chicago Red Skulls, to seize the titanium mine.

While the Skulls were able to take control of the mine, the Die Spinne forces deployed to capture the plans were unsuccessful, as the doctor had entrusted them to his friend Nathan Zachary. Doctor Fassenbiender was killed in the assault.

Von Essen was able to recover the plans later thanks to the treacherous Maria Sanchez, who stole them from the Fortune Hunters. She, too, was killed by Von Essen.

While Nathan Zachary and the Fortune Hunters were able to dismantle most of Von Essen's operation, they were unable to reach him before the Wind Turbine could be integrated into the supermassive Starker Sturm zeppelin, which Von Essen personally piloted into Chicago. The Starker Sturm performed perfectly, generating massive tornadoes which devastated downtown Chicago before the zeppelin was destroyed by the Fortune Hunters.

The plans for the Wind Turbine were lost aboard the Starker Sturm, and there are no known copies.